IT Management: Hot Certified, Noncertified IT Skills: What You Need Now

Hot Certified, Noncertified IT Skills: What You Need Now

by Don E. Sears

What are the "hot" certified and noncertified skills that IT professionals need? IT research analyst Foote Partners of Vero Beach, Fla., has some answers. Here, eWEEK parsed out the top 10 certified and top 10 noncertified skills from the report that are trending for the next three to six months from Foote Partners' latest "Hot List" skills report. Foote Partners' research emphasis on skills and certifications purports to capture "forward indicators of technology, business and even business investments," as well as "insights into technology segmentation (commitments, purchase intentions)." In discussions with Chief Research Officer David Foote and his partner Bill Reynolds, the definition of "hot skills" is often too easily misinterpreted as those skills that will earn workers the highest salaries, but the goal of these reports is much broader than pay impact alone. They seek to show trending from a supply and demand perspective to help inform IT management on where skill trends are heading from where they have been. The latest report features a fair amount of software- and programming-based skills, as well as open-source skillsboth Linux and securing Linux. Despite a continued presence of demand in security skills for more than three years, one beginner, entry-level certification cracked this quarter's certification hot list for the first time, Foote told eWEEK.